Category Archives: Memoir

Reflections on Reinvention

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“No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.”

—Taoist proverb

The extraordinary connection between self-reflection and performance is well-known and well-documented. For example, in their Harvard Business Review article “Don’t Underestimate the Power of Self-Reflection,” James R. Bailey and Scheherazade Rehman show that the “habit of reflection can separate extraordinary professionals from mediocre ones. We would go so far as to argue that it’s the foundation that all other soft skills grow from.”

Luckily for me, I’ve been doing self-reflection since early childhood. At dinner, as we all sat around the kitchen table, we had a regular ritual. Everyone reflected on their day. We turned our dinner-table sharings into dinner-table learning moments. Each of us reflected on–and talked about–what had happened during the day and what impact it had on us. 

My dad’s coal-mining reflections always impressed me the most. His pay was based on how many coal cars he loaded each day, shovel by shovel, working in seams of coal sometimes no higher than 40 inches. He and his fellow coal miners shoveled coal while lying on their backs or kneeling on their knees. Generally, my dad was pleased by what he accomplished–he actually enjoyed being a coal miner. But since his pay and his family’s livelihood depended on how many coal cars he loaded, he would strategize what he might do to load one more car the next day. It was a succession of what-ifs. The next day, he’d let us know whether his strategy had worked.

Looking back, I realize that day after day, my dad was measuring his performance against his plan. Looking back, I realize that we were all doing the same thing as we gathered around our kitchen table and shared thoughtful, deliberate, and sometimes courageous self-reflections.

● Self-reflection.

● Measuring performance against plan.

I have always done that, willingly and enthusiastically throughout my careers. During the years that I taught at Laurel Ridge Community College (formerly Lord Fairfax Community College; 1999-2022), I spent the better part of December standing still, reflecting on my year of teaching that had just ended. I turned my self-reflections into my annual self-evaluation, complete with supporting documentation. Generally, those self-evaluations were longer than 150 pages, covering accomplishments as well as areas that I wanted to work on and explore during the next year. They meant so much to me that I had them bound in leather. Most of the time, those self-evaluations weren’t required, and even when they were, the requirement was never as great as the distance that I went. It was my ongoing way of ensuring that I measured my performance against my plan.

In January of this year, I started reinventing myself. Now, with seven months behind me, I’m standing still long enough to reflect and to share my self-reflections with you.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

1. Book Publications

I am really proud that I’ve had two books published since January. One was published in April: In Bed: My Year of Foolin’ Around.

The second, a scholarly work, was published in May: Green Mountain Stories. Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. Introduction and Critical Commentary by Brent L. Kendrick.

Obviously, I had been working on both books long before I started my reinvention. Books don’t spring into existence overnight. At the same time, seeing two books through the publication process brought me great joy.

On reflection, however, I wish that I had allowed more time between the two books. I had to do far more heavy lifting, getting them published than I ever expected. I don’t think that I will ever again have two books in the publication hopper at the same time.

2. Book Launches

Without a blush of shame, I did my own launch of In Bed: My Year of Foolin’ Around. I did it right here in my blog, in my May 8 post: Just Published. In Bed: My Year of Foolin’ Around.

The next week, I cast shame aside once again and promoted my Green Mountain Stories: My Forthcoming Book Will Anchor Mary E. Wilkins Freeman to Vermont, Now and Forever.

Fortunately, Green Mountain Stories had two launches sponsored by other people. The first was by the book’s publisher, Onion River Press: Brent Kendrick. Book Launch Celebration. The second book launch took place in Brattleboro, Vermont, where Freeman began her acclaimed literary career: Green Mountain Stories. Live at the Library.

3. Library Presentation

On Sunday, July 9, I was the guest speaker at the New Market Area Library (New Market, VA). My topic? Reinvention and my own attempts to begin new “chapters” in my life. 

I targeted my presentation toward anyone considering a new beginning, aspiring writers, and lovers of short stories.

CHALLENGES

1. Giving Myself Permission to Chill.

I have an incredibly strong work ethic, which has always kept me hard at work doing something. It brings me great joy.

Even though I have set up my own work schedule, I have discovered that I have more time now to just chill. I’m not talking about meditation. I’ve done that forever. I’m talking about curling up with a book for the entire day. I did just that last week when I re-read (for the fifth time) George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo. It was a luxurious experience, but from time to time, I had to chase away the thought that I should be up and about doing something.

It will take me some time, but I’m working on chilling.

2. Reassessing My Structure.

This challenge is related closely to my first one. I’m a laid-back, go-with-the-flow guy. Right? Well, I am. However, I like my days to be structured. Actually, that’s an understatement. I like–and live–a regimented existence. I always have. If I shared my day-planner–(Don’t ask; I won’t share.) –you would discover that all the timeslots are full, from sunup to sundown.

These days, I’m discovering that I can accomplish everything that I want to accomplish in a day and still have some free time slots for me. Mine. All mine. This is a new sensation for me, and I like it. I had no idea before that 30 minutes here and there could expand into such vastly soft and silky luxuriousness.

ONGOING AND UPCOMING PROJECTS

1. Weekly Blog Posts.

I never dreamt how important my weekly blog posts would become to me. In the midst of whatever might be going on, writing my posts anchors me. They are essential components of who I am and of who I am yet to become.

2. Dolly: Life and Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman.

My goodness. You know you’re in love when the love grows richer over time. My love affair with Mary E. Wilkins Freeman is now in its fifth decade.

My current project has as its foundation my The Infant Sphinx: The Collected Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (Scarecrow, 1985), praised by The Journal of Modern Literature as “the most complete record to date of Freeman’s life as writer and woman.” 

Since that publication, more letters have surfaced. Rather than simply updating The Infant Sphinx, I am working on a two-volume book: Dolly: Life and Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. Vol. 1: The New England Years (1852-1901). Vol II: The New Jersey Years (1902-1930).

This is a major scholarly work will take several more years. I am hopeful that Volume I will be published by the end of 2024 or the beginning of 2025.

3. Edinburg Ole Time Festival Authors Tent.

Look for me on September 16 and 17 in the lineup with other local authors. If you live in the area, please stop by not only to say “Hi” but also to support the festival.

4. The Humourist Essays.

This blog had its birth when I was a Chancellor’s Professor (2012-2014). My project focused on a remarkable collection of Colonial American essays, songs, poems, and advertisements published pseudonymously under the name of “The Humourist” in the South Carolina Gazette during 1753-1754. The Encyclopedia of the Essay (ed. Tracy Chevalier, 1997) places “The Humourist” essays in the tradition of Samuel Johnson’s Rambler essays and observes that they are the only “full-fledged literary” works to have appeared in the South Carolina Gazette. J. A. Leo Lemay (du Pont Winterthur Professor of English at the University of Delaware) noted in A Bibliographical Guide to the Study of Southern Literature (1969) that the essays should be edited, published, and the author identified.

I completed all of those tasks. My plan is to start sending the completed manuscript to publishers by the end of September, with an eye toward publication in January/February2024.

ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNERS

I’m really glad that I’m continuing my decades-old practice of regularly reflecting on my performance. This time, though, is singularly different. I’m sharing my self-reflections with you. I like that. Actually, I like that a lot. By sharing my plans with you, I am, of course, holding myself accountable to readers from around the world. The ramifications are far-reaching. Equally important, by sharing my plans with you, you become my virtual accountability partners. You can count on me, and I know that I can count on you!

Telling Our Stories. Shaping Our Lives.

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A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.  

–Emily Dickinson (1830-1886; one of the most important poets in American literature.)

Who doesn’t love a good story? We all do. And why wouldn’t we? We’ve spent our entire lives–including our fetal days–listening to others’ stories. Equally important, we’ve spent most of our entire lives telling stories. Humans are born storytellers.

We spend a large part of every day sharing with others the stories of our lives and taking the time to let others share with us the stories of their lives. I’m not talking about stories with profound, monumental meaning. I’m talking about the simple joy of sharing the narrative of what’s going on in our lives. I’m talking about the simple joy of hearing the narrative about what’s going on in other people’s lives.

With friends and colleagues, we’re sure to get a story going as soon as we start talking about trips, cooking, movies, music, what’s happening at work, pets, health, or social media.

With family, we’re sure to get a story going as soon as we start talking about childhood memories, family traditions, milestones, lessons learned from parents, family challenges, or heirlooms.

Obviously, story topics often overlap with family and friends, and, obviously, the topics are far more extensive than the few examples that I just gave.

Our stories–our personal narratives–are invaluable. They help us:

● connect, laugh, cry, and bond.

● gain a deeper understanding of others’ experiences and lives.

● discover who the other people in our lives are.

● discover who we are.

● define and shape our lives.

Luckily, most of us know how to tell our stories.

● Start with just enough information to establish a timeframe and to identify where things are taking place.

● Tell what happened to put things into motion.

● Explain subsequent events, making each one more intense than the one before, and hopefully moving them along at a clipped pace.

● Make the climax the most intense moment in the story.

● Wrap things up and share some insights into the “meaning” of the story that we just told.

We know a lot when it comes to telling our stories.

At the same time, we fall short in one way that has far-reaching ramifications. More often than not, we don’t spend enough time thinking about what to put in and what to leave out.

Think about it for a minute: What should we put in our stories, our personal narratives?

Think about it for a minute: What should we leave out of our stories, our personal narratives?

What we leave out matters, but ironically, it’s what we put in that matters far more.

What we put in creates the image of who we are. It creates the dominant impression that our listeners–friends, family, colleagues, and casual acquaintances–have about us.

The stories that we tell reflect who we are, shape who we are, and determine who we are yet to become.

What got me to thinking about the significance of our personal narratives was a casual statement that someone made to me a few weeks ago when we were talking about one of my culinary triumphs:

“Everything that you make in the kitchen is extraordinary,” she said.

“Hardly,” I replied. I have lots of failures.”

“Really?”

“Of course, I do. I just don’t talk about them. Remember: it’s my story, and I’ll tell it my way.“

It’s my story, and I’ll tell it my way. I always have. I always will.

My way of telling my story–going as far back as I can remember–is to make it glisten with smiling happiness, hard work, steadfast belief, stubborn success, and undying optimism.

That’s not to say that I haven’t known the opposites of those glistenings. Of course, I have. Often, I have known them in overflowing measure, unknown to others.

At the same time, I have never allowed negatives to be the measure of who I am. When I share my story–my personal narrative–I give the downsides of my life exactly what I think they deserve: either no mention at all or brief mention at best.

For years, I’ve shared in my story that as early as the third grade, I knew that I wanted to be an English professor.

I have no idea where I got that notion. We certainly didn’t have any professors in my coal camp, although we had exceptional educators who, in my mind, walked on water. Who knows. Maybe one of them challenged me to go further than they had gone? Maybe it was my mother, who also walked on water. Maybe she challenged me to go further than she had seen others go.

I don’t remember. But I do recall that from the third grade forward, becoming an English professor became the thrust of my story–my personal narrative–that I told myself and that I shared with others.

The story came true. I became an English professor.

These days, my story is taking a new twist. I’m reinventing myself. When I tell people what I’m doing, I often get raised eyebrows.

“You mean you’ve retired?”

“No. I mean that I’m reinventing myself.”

For me, as someone who treasures words and stories, there’s a world of difference between retiring and reinventing.

It’s my story, and I’ll tell it my way. If the word professor carried my personal narrative forward from the third grade up until now–and it did, with success beyond measure, I might add–then I believe with all my heart that the word reinventing will carry my personal narrative forward for the rest of my life.

And you? What about you?

It’s your story to tell. How will you tell it? What will you put in? What will you leave out? As you make your choices, remember: the way that you tell your story will shape your life now and forever.

Less Talk. More Action.

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“Actions speak louder than words; let your words teach and your actions speak.”

St. Anthony of Padua (1195-1231; Roman Catholic Priest and friar of the Franciscan order; one of the most quickly canonized saints in church history, having been canonized less than a year after his death.)

Without a doubt, you remember my dog, Ruby. Right? You know: the one who found her way to me so that she could see me through to “The Other Side”. (Hopefully, she won’t be in any hurry. I’m not.)

Anyway, a few weeks back, Ruby survived a horrendous Copperhead bite. For hours after I rushed her to the nearest Animal Emergency Hospital where she was admitted, I feared that I would be seeing her through to the other side. (I’m in no hurry for her journey, either.)

I’m not one to cast blame–and I certainly would not cast blame on Ruby, my Old Soul who can do no wrong–but I’ve gotten it into my head that she saw that Copperhead creepy-crawling along in our woodland yard, went up close to check it out, and ignored its tail slowly getting into a tighter position to leverage its head for a powerful and swift strike. How else could the Copperhead have managed to sink its venomous fangs right inside her mouth? It did. Mind you: I would never–absolutely never–tell Ruby that I think she provoked the snake. So, I beg you, too: please do not tell her. (But I think she did. Okay. Maybe she did. Perhaps.)

Whether yay or nay, you can rest assured that I told my neighbors so that they could protect themselves and their furry best friends.

Truly. That was my only reason for sharing the near tragic event. I didn’t want any sympathy or any attention.

Yet, at the same time, I confess that I would have appreciated a phone call or two just to check. Those calls would have meant as much to me as the regular calls from my sisters and the regular text messages that I got from other friends who live miles away. Letting people know that we care matters. Let’s face it: how long does it take to make a phone call or text a message?

Well, I’m not complaining. I have splendid neighbors, and we’ve known one another for years and years. The fact that they had not inquired about Ruby only crossed my mind once or twice, and whenever it did, I let the thought move on after a sarcastic monologue, “Thank you so much for asking. Ruby’s a fighter, and she’s recovering beautifully. I’m getting on good, too. I really appreciate your concern.”

But, like I said, I let those thoughts move right out of my head just as rapidly as they had moved in, and I paid them nary no mind whatsoever. I really didn’t, until the day when I was driving past one of my neighbors, and I stopped to chat.

“I was gonna call you to check on Ruby, but I never got around to it.”

Well, that got me thinking about all the things that we say we’re gonna do. I’ve been thinking about it since and that was several weeks ago.

Things we say we’re gonna do, but just don’t do.

Mind you: I’m not talking about things that we don’t have the courage to do, like becoming a firefighter or ceasing to worry about what other people think or say about us.

Or things that we don’t have the money to do, like hiring our personal chef (but you can ask me anyway) or boasting our own private jet.

Or things that we don’t know how to do and that we don’t want to learn how to do, like flying an airplane or creating video games.

I’m talking about all the things that we say we’re gonna do that take nothing more than time and commitment.

I’m talking about things we say we’re gonna do for ourselves, like really drinking eight glasses of water a day (instead of just talking about it) or really losing those last ten pounds (instead of just talking about it).

I’m talking about things we say we’re gonna do for the world around us, like volunteering at our local hospital (instead of just talking about volunteering) or donating to a charity (instead of just talking about donating).

I’m talking about things we say we’re gonna do for others, like telling someone how treasured they are (instead of just talking about telling them) or visiting a friend or loved one (instead of just talking about visiting).

I may be wrong, but I’ve been tossing around a list of statements starting with “I was gonna” and, without fail, each is followed with, “but I never got around to it.”

What a pity. More often than not, “I was gonna” could make our lives, our world, and the lives of others better and brighter if we focused less on talk and more on action.

An Unexpected Morning with Johnny Swing

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“During the interaction between the viewer and the work of art a sharing occurs, the senses are alerted, and a primal experience is generated by being on/in the work. A feeling of bliss, a surprise, a sense of oneness and belonging exists. After the initial shock of the experience comes the inevitable investigation on the part of the viewer, and what was once limited to the eyes is now open to the flesh.”

Johnny Swing (b. 1961, “Artist Statement.” one of the foremost exponents of the American Studio Furniture movement, specializing in “objects of refulgence with money”)

In keeping with the way most articles begin about Johnny Swing, I suppose that I should start this post by saying:

Yes. That’s his real name.

But this isn’t just any article about Johnny Swing. So I don’t need to start by declaring that it’s his real name. (Just for the record, it is.)

So I’ll move on to the backstory, which is where I planned to begin anyway. Backstories have a way of getting to the heart of the matter.

This backstory begins when I was planning my Vermont trip to launch my recently published edition of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s Green Mountain Stories.

For the Brattleboro part of my journey, I started looking for a VRBO home that was pet friendly. (I had intended to take my dog Ruby, but that part of my best-laid plan went astray, as you may recall from my post “A Road Trip Beyond Expectations.”)

I found a charming cottage situated on a farm, sixteen miles or so outside of Brattleboro. That was a little further away than I desired, but the cottage and the farm seemed so idyllic that I knew my stay there was written in the stars.

I reached out to the owners, and within 24 hours, we had sealed the deal. They emailed me precise directions, gave me their cell phone numbers, and ended with this charmer:

Our house … is the white house on your left. Turn in the first driveway and go between the house and garage up the little hill, and the guest house will be off to the left. We will leave the guest house open and the key hanging by the door.

I smiled a wider than usual smile, whispering to myself: we will leave the house open and the key hanging by the door.

Still smiling, I replied:

Thanks for reminding me why Vermont has such a special place in my heart.

As my trip drew closer, I decided to Google my own set of directions. When I added the address of the cottage where I would be staying, I was stunned by what popped up: Johnny Swing Welding.

OMG. I was beside myself. Can this be THE Johnny Swing–“one of the most celebrated exponents of the American Studio Furniture Movement?”

I had heard of THIS Johnny Swing, and I had actually seen some of his work in Sotheby’s catalogues. The artist who earned his Fine Arts degree from Skidmore College and later obtained his Class 1 Structural Steel Welding License. The artist whose coin-based furniture contours to the natural curves of the human body, and comfortably so, I might add. The artist whose sofa “All the King’s Men” (welded of JFK half dollars) fetched $155,000 at Christie’s.

A little research confirmed that THIS Johnny Swing and the Johnny Swing in whose cottage I would be staying were one and the same.

I was ecstatic. Actually, I was smitten. I immediately fired off a short one-sentence email:

I love your sculpture.

Sara, his wife, replied:

I’ll tell Johnny. He will be happy to give you a tour of his shop if you would like.

“I would be thrilled,” I replied.

How’s them apples? The world-acclaimed Johnny Swing has a shop. Lesser artists have studios. But then, Johnny Swing doesn’t need to be pretentious. And he isn’t.

The day before I arrived, Sara emailed me again:

In case you are a poker player, we are having a big poker party tomorrow night about 6 or so. At least stop by for burgers. (Beef and vegetarian.) It’s Johnny’s birthday this weekend.

When I arrived, I met Sara, as she unloaded groceries from her car. We had a great chat about a food co-op that I had just visited in a neighboring town. I felt as if I had known Sara for a long, long time, so much so that I knew she would understand that I was road weary and simply had to beg off both Friday night invitations.

I drove on up the stone’s-throw distance to the guest house, and, indeed, it was as they said it would be. The door was unlocked, and the key was hanging by the door. As I found out later, the guest house was Johnny Swings’s grandmother’s artist studio, originally situated adjacent to the main house. With Swing ingenuity, Johnny took cranes, moved it uphill closer to the pasture, retained the original studio with its exposed wooden beams, added several more rooms, and created a welcoming and refreshing guest house. The deck–on two sides, both facing pastureland–is shaped like the bow of a ship, supported by massive steel girders, nowhere to be seen from the top.

Inside the cottage, I felt right at home. Everything–well, nearly everything–looked just like the website photos. However, when I walked into my bedroom, I saw two chairs that weren’t included in the website photos. I knew immediately that Johnny Swing had made those chairs. Secured to a splayed-leg steel frame, the continuous chair seat and back looked like identically sized glass cylinders arranged with mathematical precision. Unlike most of Swing’s other pieces, these are not made of coins. Each chair is made of baby-food jars, 96 to be precise. I know. I counted. Each row is 6 baby-food jars wide, and there are 16 rows, running from the front lip of the seat to the uppermost part of the back. The bottoms of the jars face outward. The lids secure each jar to short stainless-steel rods anchored to the chair’s stainless-steel frame.

I was mesmerized, first, by the light streaming in the windows, shimmering around inside each jar, and beaming off in all directions onto the polished but bare hardwood floor. It was a chair, but it was more than a chair. It was a magical kaleidoscope teasing me to sit on its ever-changing brilliance.

I felt compelled to touch the chair. When I did, I was mesmerized again. How could glass jars–bottoms up, all lined up in rows with gaps between each jar–feel so solid, so smooth, and so soft all at the same time?

By then, the chair (whose seductive sensuality I had been enjoying) invited me to sit. I did. At that moment, I was mesmerized for a third time. The chair was remarkably–no, amazingly–comfortable. It fit the contours of my buttocks and the curves of my back, as if it had been made just for me. As I sat, I continued watching as each of the jars surrounding me captured the sunlight momentarily and then tossed the rays onto the hardwood floor to be absorbed into the fleeting foreverness of now. I sat and sat and sat for a long, long, long while before allowing myself to be mesmerized all over again by becoming one with the second chair.

Before I knew it, the sun was going down. I retreated to the bed, not to sleep but rather to lie there, looking to see what I could see. Looking directly ahead and through the window flanked by the two chairs, I could see sheep and several cows grazing in the pasture. To the right, a small barn, its once bright redness weathered to soft burgundy. Further up the hill and on the pasture’s edge, the sugar shack. (Yes: Johnny Swing makes his own maple syrup under the label Spring Farm.)

Below the window was a Swing table, supported by a stainless-steel frame–rather industrial looking–with a magnificent top, about 3 inches thick, made of multiple layers of glass. One of the interior layers was cracked. Swing incorporated it into the table anyway as his way of creating art from what he finds and as a reminder of the beauty to be found in our brokenness.

Looking overhead, I was spellbound by the light fixture suspended by a copper rod: two shades of hammered copper–reminding me of sombrero rims–each with a lighted jar attached at a whimsical, non-vertical, cock-eyed angle.

Saturday and Sunday found me busy with my research. In the back of my mind both days, of course, was the lingering hope of meeting Johnny Swing in person and having a tour of his shop.

When I looked out my window Monday morning, I saw Sara and Johnny ambling to the pasture to feed the cows and sheep. I knew that this was my moment. As they made their way out of the pasture, I made my way out of the house, walking briskly toward them. I introduced myself to Johnny, and we shook hands.

Do you have time to see my shop today?

Absolutely.

Let me have a little breakfast, and we’ll head off.

Not long afterward, we were on our way. Johnny was impressed by my Jeep Gladiator and suggested that we drive up a weathered, washed-out, one-lane road to the top of the mountain so that he could show me the camp that he and his father had built there years ago.

The drive up was slow and easy, as was our conversation touching on everything from our upbringing, our college days, our loves and our losses, and the power of new beginnings.

When we reached the top, I was speechless. The stunning home that I saw–though needing some tender loving care–could never be called a camp. But then again, I guess that it can be called a camp just as readily as Johnny can call his studio a shop.

Johnny eased himself into a deck chair–one of a pair made by one of his college friends–while I photographed him and the house and the majestic views of the mountains that the house and Johnny and I faced.

We stayed and continued chatting and then made the slow descent down the mountain, past Johnny’s home and my cottage.

The shop was only a mile or so away, and I had passed it daily without realizing what I was passing.

We entered. As Johnny turned on the lights, he came alive. His shop, his theater in the round. I, his solitary morning audience. His face, always pleasant and relaxed, beamed an inner joy that made him glow as he showed me around, lifting many of the coin sculptures to point out the precise artistry of the underlying structures and to show me some of the Styrofoam molds that serve as initial building blocks for his larger metallic pieces.

I was joyed beyond joy to see Kora-lle which I had seen in a catalog somewhere or other. Johnny could not help himself: the expansive “tongue “chair licked him in, and he leaned back in a moment of bliss that is as fresh in my mind as if I had just witnessed his lounging there.

If I was smitten by Johnny Swing’s art before fate destined me to be a guest in his cottage–and I was–I was even more smitten now that I had seen him in action in his shop.

After his up-close-and-personal tour, we headed back: Johnny, to his home; I, to my cottage. Before my thank yous and our goodbyes, I gave Johnny signed copies of my Green Mountain Stories and In Bed: My Year of Foolin’ Around.

I looked at my watch. It was noon. Can you imagine? Johnny Swing had gifted me the entire morning of his 62nd birthday.

A Road Trip Beyond Expectations

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But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
          Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
          For promis’d joy!

Robert Burns (1759-1796; considered to be the National Poet of Scotland; from his “To a Mouse”)

Without a doubt, you’re familiar with the poetic lines, “The best laid schemes of mice and men often go astray,” even if you don’t know that Robert Burns penned them.

The lines express a universal truth. Yet, many people have trouble accepting it. Or, maybe, they simply have trouble admitting it when their meticulous plans go awry, sometimes dreadfully so.

Down through the years, it’s happened to me so often that I can accept the poem’s truth readily. More important, I don’t mind admitting it when my best-laid plans flop.

My recent trip to Vermont is a perfect example. I planned it way back in March, just as soon as I knew that my edition of Green Mountain Stories would be launched in Burlington on May 25 and again in Brattleboro on May 30.

I decided that it could also be a much-needed vay-kay for me and my dog Ruby.

But let me ask you this. Have you ever gone on a 10-day road trip with your furry, four-legged best friend, alone with no other person traveling with you?

If so, you know already what I had to learn the hard way: it’s not really your road trip. It’s your dog’s. As I made my careful plans, it became obvious to me that everything was being built around Ruby’s needs:

● How far could she ride in a day?

● Would the hotel mid-way up and mid-way back accept a dog?

● Would the VRBO home rental in Burlington accept a dog? What about a yard so that Ruby could play?

● Would the VRBO home rental in Brattleboro accept a dog? What about a yard so that Ruby could play?

Those were my big concerns. I won’t bother you with the small ones because just a few days before my trip, my best-laid plans fell apart.

It became clear to me, to Ruby, and to our veterinarian that she would be happier staying at a pet spa rather than staying stressed out for such a long trip.

By then, it was too late to change any of my lodging arrangements. The cancellation windows had closed.

● Yeah. It would have been great to stay in swanky downtown hotels and walk to restaurants and nightspots.

● Yeah. It would have been great to fly to Vermont. Or, maybe, drive to DC’s Union Station and journey by Amtrak.

But those options were never part of my Rubyesque best-laid plans. Now it was too late. Fine. I knew that the book launches would go well. As for the rest of the road trip without Ruby, I was determined to make the most of the situation.

At that point, I had no great expectations. None. But that was okay, too. Sometimes life gets better when we expect less. And so it came to be on this trip. My serendipitous encounters took me far greater distances than the distance I would travel. Let me share a few with you.

By the time that I reached Hazelton, PA–three hours or so from my home in Edinburg, VA, driving North on I-81–it was as if I had stepped back into early Spring. The forest canopy was see-through thin, and the leaves were so small, so new, so filled with promise that I immediately started reciting to myself, aloud, for no one else was around to hear, Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay”:

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief.
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

I love that poem on so many levels, not the least of which is knowing how much effort Frost put into revising it. It didn’t spring into existence as the exquisite 8-line octave that we know. The revision history of the poem–even my sketchy recollection of it–fascinates me because Frost maintained that he did not revise his poems a lot. Here’s how he put it:

A poem may be worked over once it is in being, but may not be worried into being. Its most precious quality will remain its having run itself and having carried the poet with it (“The Figure a Poem Makes,” Collected Poems, 1939).

Frost might disagree, but it seems to me that he worried “Nothing Gold Can Stay” into existence. Let me explain. It started out as three octaves, for a total of 24 lines. More important, the original title was “Nothing Golden Stays.” Well, hello. Duh! Of course, nothing golden stays. Golden is a characteristic. It’s not the real thing.

But after four or five needed revisions, Frost distilled 24 poetic lines into the 8 that we enjoy today, and he changed golden to gold, knowing fully well that if nothing gold can stay we had all damned well better sit up and take notice, especially considering that even Eden sank to grief.

I could go on and on about this poem, but if I do, I’ll not be able to share other parts of my road trip that exceeded expectations. I had better put the pedal to the metal.

Wow! Two asphalt-hours are in my rear-view mirror, I didn’t get a speeding ticket, and I’ve reached my trip’s mid-way destination, headed north: a hotel in Johnson City, NY.

Approaching the city, I was thrilled beyond expectations to see a sign: HOME OF DAVID SEDARIS. Sedaris is one of my favorite writers, yet I had no idea that he was from Johnson City. Imagine that! And here I was sleeping … right in his … home … town. That’s almost downright sultry.

I’ve known Sedaris–not personally but rather as a humorist, comedian, and author–for decades, going all the way back to 1992 when National Public Radio broadcast his essay “Santaland Diaries.” I have always appreciated and enjoyed his self-deprecating humor, his candor about growing up gay in middle-class America in the late Sixties and the early Seventies, and his open-and-oft-written-about commitment to his long-time partner Hugh Hamrick. Hamrick has a few things to say about their relationship, too: “Hugh Hamrick—David Sedaris’ Boyfriend—Finally Tells His Side of Their Story.”

After I got settled in my Johnson City hotel room, I decided that I’d spend the evening in bed with Sedaris. (Re-reading some of his essays on my all-time favorites list.)

It was a “wild night, wild night.“ (Of reading.) I awakened the next morning refreshed and ready to continue my journey.

Not long after leaving Johnson City, I saw signs announcing that I was in New York State’s Southern Tier. I’m not sure why, but I always chuckle when I see those Southern Tier signs. But my laughter subsided as I started seeing birch trees everywhere, as far as I could see. And I immediately thought of Robert Frost’s poem, “Birches,” but since I have written extensively about that poem already in my “A Swinger of Birches,” I will say no more about the poem here except to quote its opening lines:

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.

An hour or so later, I started seeing signs for Cooperstown, NY. It goes without saying that I fully expected to see a sign: HOME OF JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. I had every right to have that expectation since the town was named after the Cooper family, since Cooper was America’s first novelist to earn his living as a writer, and since Cooperstown and the surrounding frontier served as the backdrop for The Pioneers, the first of five novels in his Leatherstocking Tales.

I did not see the sign that I had expected. Instead, I saw signs announcing Cooperstown as Home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. It’s too bad that Cooper’s hometown doesn’t consider him to be a Major League player.

An hour or so later, I approached Saratoga Springs, NY. I was ecstatic. Saratoga Springs. The setting for most of the action in Sherwood Anderson’s famous rite-of-passage short story “I Want to Know Why.”

But about Saratoga. We was there six days and not a soul from home seen us and everything came off just as we wanted it to, fine weather and horses and races and all. We beat our way home and Bildad gave us a basket with fried chicken and bread and other eatables in, and I had eighteen dollars when we got back to Beckersville. Mother jawed and cried but Pop didn’t say much. I told everything we done except one thing. I did and saw that alone. That’s what I’m writing about. It got me upset. I think about it at night. Here it is.

How’s that. The unnamed fifteen-year-old narrator goes back home and tells his parents everything that happened in Saratoga except for the one thing that he “did and saw alone.”

What he doesn’t tell his parents is the passion and love that he feels for Jerry Tilford, a horse trainer. What he doesn’t tell his parents is what he saw Tilford doing in a farmhouse with a “bad woman.” What he doesn’t tell his parents is how he felt about Tilford when he saw what he saw:

Then, all of a sudden, I began to hate that man. I wanted to scream and rush into the room and kill him. I never had such a feeling before. I was mad clean through and I cried and my fists were doubled up so my finger nails cut my hands.

The story ends the next spring with the narrator, nearly sixteen, still wanting to know why Jerry Tilford did what he did. I suspect that the narrator spent his entire life being upset by his feelings and by Jerry’s actions. I suspect that the narrator spent his entire life wondering why things didn’t work out as he hoped they would work out.

It’s one of the most haunting stories about coming-of-age, sexual desire, and rejection that you can ever hope to read. Anderson deals with the topic far more overtly in his story “The Man Who Became a Woman.” After you read that story, you simply must read Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio (1919). It’s an overlooked classic in American literature.

Two hours or so later, I reached my first book-launch destination: Burlington, VT. I am embarrassed to say that even though I love Ben & Jerry’s Ice-Cream, I had no idea that Burlington has been its home since 1978 when they started dishing it out. Today, it’s still their home, with 282 million pints of deliciousness churned annually.

After Burlington, I headed south to Brattleboro for a second launch of Green Mountain Stories. Obviously, I need not remind you that Mary E. Wilkins Freeman–the author of Green Mountain Stories–launched her career in Brattleboro.

What else can I share about Brattleboro that might exceed your expectations?

Royall Tyler, America’s first playwright whose The Contrast (1787) still enjoys theatrical productions, moved to Brattleboro in 1801 and is buried there in Prospect Hill Cemetery.

Then, of course, we have Rudyard Kipling, English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist, known for being the first English-language writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature (1907). What most folks don’t know is that he married Caroline Balestier of Brattleboro in 1892, moved there–initially living in Bliss Cottage where he wrote The Jungle Book (1894)–and then built Naulakha, which is on the Landmark Trust USA. What even fewer people know is that Freeman met Kipling in the Spring of 1892, on one of her return visits to Brattleboro. Later, she wrote to a friend:

The spell of Ruddy’s eyes have faded away, but my heart still clings to the coupe driver. (Letter 111 to Evelyn Sawyer Severance, The Infant Sphinx: Collected Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, ed. with Biographical/Critical Introductions by Brent L. Kendrick. Scarecrow, 1985.)

And what almost no one knows is that Saul Bellow–acclaimed Canadian-American Nobel Laureate in Literature and author of such noteworthy novels as Dangling Man (1944), The Adventures of Augie March (1953), Seize the Day (1956), and Henderson the Rain King (1959)–lived in Brattleboro for the last 26 years of his life and is buried there in the Shir He Harim Jewish Cemetery section of Morningside Cemetery.

The morning after my Brattleboro book launch, I started the long drive back home. I intended it to be a straight shot on interstates. Somehow–accidentally, I should add–my Gladiator’s Navigation System was programmed to AVOID HIGHWAYS. And I was programmed to DON’T THINK. I just kept right on going down one country back road after another, paying them nary no mind whatsoever. After all, I was getting an up-close-and-personal view of Vermont’s Green Mountains.

The next thing I knew, I was approaching Ulster, NY, with signs announcing HEADLESS HORSEMAN HAYRIDES AND HAUNTED HOUSES. Oh. My. God. How the hell did I end up in the Lower Catskills where folks still scare themselves with Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820).

Suffice it to say, I had given myself my own fright. Immediately, I adjusted my Navigation System, got back on my intended route, settled in to Cruise Control, and clicked my boots together three times, saying “There’s no place like home.”

Before I knew it, I had picked up Ruby from the pet spa. As I drove back up my mountain road, I shared with her brief highlights of my road trip beyond expectations. But as soon as I saw our house, I stopped my storytelling and shouted:

“But anyway, Ruby, we’re home–home.”

“Sit Down.” “No, I Can’t Sit Down.”

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There can be no joy in living without joy in work.

Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274; Italian philosopher and theologian, often seen as a foundational figure of modern thought.)

The Sheep’s Rain this year nearly did me in.

“What the hell is the Sheep’s Rain?” someone just bleated.

If you don’t know, don’t bother asking Google. I just did and found nothing. Absolutely nothing.

So let me tell you all about the Sheep’s Rain, just as my mother told me all about it when I was a child. Without fail, at least in Virginia (where she grew up) and in West Virginia (where she lived after she married my dad) a cold rain always fell around the middle of May, the temps dropped to lower than usual, and the rain kept falling for ten days or so. Farmers never sheared their sheep until after that cold rainy spell in May. They knew that if they did, their sheep would develop pneumonia and die.

Having lived in West Virginia, DC, and Virginia for my entire life–except for five years in South Carolina–I have witnessed the Sheep’s Rain every year since my mother explained it to me when I was a child.

However, when I started thinking about this post, I started asking people I know in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia where I live if they had ever heard of the Sheep’s Rain. No one–not even farmers–had any idea what I was talking about.

Who knows. Maybe it was a term used by farmers in Patrick County where my mother grew up. Maybe she, in turn, kept right on referring to the Sheep’s Rain down through the years, dutifully passing the name of this annual weather phenomenon on to her children who still talk about it.

I always believed my mother, of course, and it goes without saying that I still do.

But it does seem to me that I should be able to give you a far better explanation of the Sheep’s Rain than the one that I just gave. Agreed? Thank you. Let’s all have a brief learning moment. I simply must see what the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has to say. I’ll be right back.

Well, I have good news and bad news.

I’ll start with the bad news. The OED has no recorded usage of the Sheep’s Rain. Ever.

I am flabbergasted.

Here’s the good news. I will send this post to the OED editors so that they can use it as the first-known printed usage of the term Sheep’s Rain. I never dreamt that this post would immortalize me, my mother, and the Sheep’s Rain. Wouldn’t it be truly funny if it did! Well, it might. Stranger things have happened.

Now that we’ve gotten all of that out of the way–thank God for small mercies–let me get back to sharing with you why the Sheep’s Rain this year nearly did me in.

A warm spell lulled me into believing that spring was slipping softly and certainly into an early summer. I went ahead and moved all of my houseplants–tropicals and cacti–deck side.

I convinced myself that the Sheep’s Rain might just pass us by this year.

In fact, I started doing heavy pruning, weedwhacking, and brush cutting. I had a plan that would keep me busy for at least a week.

But to my surprise, the Sheep’s Rain snuck up on me and put a wet, cold damper on my plans to work outdoors.

No problem. I am a resourceful fellow, not easily outdone.

I simply shifted my focus to indoors. I cleaned the house. That was a marvelous solution for the first day of the Sheep’s Rain that imprisoned me indoors unexpectedly.

Fine. I can be resourceful for more than one day. Day two found me joyfully polishing the interiors of all my windows. My entire home seemed to be one window after another, bouncing their sparkling, streak-free reflections everywhere. I was finished by noon.

I spent the afternoon re-reading George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo for the fifth time.

Then I leisured my way through my dinner prep as the fire roared red in my kitchen fireplace.

Bedtime came early, and the next morning came even earlier as day three of the Sheep’s Rain imprinted itself on my deepening pain.

No problem. My resourcefulness prompted me to bike longer, pump iron longer, read longer, research longer, nap longer, and take longer for dinner.

But. Geez. How much of a good thing can a mountain man take?

I mean. Don’t get me wrong. I love–absolutely love–all of those things. But in their midst, I need something else that I wasn’t getting.

And that’s why the Sheep’s Rain this year nearly did me in.

What I needed–what I wasn’t getting–were the benefits that go hand in hand with hard work.

Stop right now. Don’t even go there. I’m fully aware that cooking and cleaning and reading and research and writing and biking and lifting weights all require hard work, sometimes far more than others are willing to acknowledge.

But I needed to get down and dirty with manual work that leaves the muscles I know feeling sorer than they’ve ever felt before, and that leaves the muscles I don’t know, knowing that they had damned well better get with the program.

I needed to raise my 8-pound maul mid-air and thrust it back down with such force that round after round of oak would pile up in mound after mound of split wood.

I needed to bring order to all of that mounded chaos at day’s end by rhythmically stacking it all into perfectly measured and balanced cords of firewood.

I needed spurt after spurt after spurt of endorphins to be released, to pump me up, to clear my brain, and to make me see rainbow after rainbow after rainbow. Rainbows of hope, arching over me, arching around me, arching behind me, and arching ahead of me. Rainbows. Hope. Everywhere.

Somehow the more that I write about it, the more I’m coming to realize that the Sheep’s Rain this year really didn’t nearly do me in.

Instead, it impressed upon me what I have realized so many times before. I need manual labor to spur me on with my creative labors and my intellectual labors.

Instead, it impressed upon me the wish that when my now is done and my forever begins, I want to keep right on working.

When I reach my home in that land somewhere–that world to come somewhere–I want to be of like mind with that old gospel song:

“Sit down.”

“No, I can’t sit down. I just got to Heaven, and I got to walk around.”

And you had damned well better believe that I won’t be walking around gawking at those twelve gates of single pearls and those transparent streets of pure gold.

I’ll be walking around with a can of Pledge in one hand and a microfiber dust cloth in the other. Somebody, after all, will have to keep all those splendiferous furnishings clean. I won’t mind at all.

After I’m done with dusting, I hope to find a hand plow so that I can start tilling all those fertile fields and get an early start on gardening. From time to time, maybe I’ll get to work up a heady sweat by moving rocks as big as the biggest boulders I’ve ever moved in my whole life.

After the gardening and the dusting, maybe I can work in the bakery for a few hours a day. I’ll be sure to bring along a little jar of my sourdough starter, grown from spores back home on my mountaintop in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. And, for good measure, I’ll bring extra copies of “Oh, No! Sourdough!” for folks who just want to sit around all day, reading.

As for me, one thing’s for sure. I won’t be sitting around, and I won’t be sitting down. Whenever I reach my home in whatever world is yet to come, I’ll be smackdab at the head of the line, looking for work, because my joy in living is upgirded by my joy in working, now and forever.

A Fragrant Patch of Dill

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“There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.”

Elizabeth Lawrence (1904-1985; internationally known gardener, considered to be one of the top twenty-five gardeners of all time).

Last night for dinner, I had a hankering for something. I didn’t know quite what. I wanted something light but rich. Is that a contradiction or what? I guess it depends on how you look at it. To me, the two extremes seemed not only desirable but also possible.

Beyond that, all that I knew about my hankering was that I wanted it to be maybe just a little lemony and maybe just a little grassy and with maybe just a hint of anise or licorice. In that instant of maybe’s, I knew that my hankering needed to honor dill. Fresh dill. Fragrant dill.

Simply put, my stomach was growling me to pursue an entrée that was light, rich, lemony and dilly.

I cannot help but pause here and ask:

“Within those parameters, what entrée would you have plated for yourself?”

And, of course, you have every right to pause here and ask the same of me:

“Within those parameters, what entrée did you plate for yourself?”

And, as you know fully well, I will answer your question fully.

I’m always telling friends about my dinners, often sending them photos, whereupon they invariably message me that I need to feature my food on Instagram, whereupon I always ask:

“Does that mean that I have achieved the culinary level of Food Porn?”

I’m still waiting for answers.

But I won’t keep you waiting. I will tell you what I made.

As I drove to the grocery store to get some fresh ingredients–the essence of everything that I plate up–I started thinking about pasta in vodka sauce, but a red sauce seemed too heavy. How about pasta in a white vodka sauce? Perfect. Butter and cream equal richness. I could add marinated artichoke hearts for a subtle tang. The focal point could be ruffle-edged ravioli, domed with ground chicken. Stir in some freshly squeezed lemon juice. Top with an abundance of fresh dill. My. Perfect. Plate. And it was my perfect plate for that night’s dinner. Light. Rich. Lemony. Dilly.

As I sat at my table, feeling ever so satisfied with the luscious entrée that I created without benefit of recipe, I floated suddenly out of my mountain-top dining room. I floated out of the Shenandoah Valley where I live. I floated out of 2023.

I landed in 1957. I landed in my West Virginia boyhood hometown. I landed in the yard where I had played so often with Stevie, a childhood friend.

I went right past the galvanized tubs, always there in his yard, always with one or more catfish swimming around in fresh clean water to soften the muddiness inherent in their taste.

I went right past the foldable, aluminum-frame, green-and-white webbed lawn chairs, circling a ribbed, split-oak basket filled with corn, hands of all ages rhythmically shucking, tossing the shucks and silks into brown paper sacks getting fuller and fuller.

I went right past the two side-by-side mulberry trees–umbrellas above us–as we sat beneath, competing with the darting black-capped, gray catbirds for the ripest, thumb-sized mulberries certain to stain our clothes as much as they purpled our teeth and tongues.

I went right past the stone granary–stifling hot inside from the sun outside, blazing down on the uninsulated tin roof. On the lower floor, corn drying in chicken-wire bins; on the upper, walnuts blackening on thick, chestnut floors.

I went right past Stevie’s aproned mother, flinging rainbows of dishwater into the kitchen-stoop air.

I went right past all of those things.

Instead, I floated to a warm, misty summer rain falling on a large patch of dill, large beyond the need to measure, but at least 30 feet by 30 feet–large enough for two young boys to lose themselves.

Stevie and I would strip down to our skivvies and run with wild, barefoot abandon through the patch of dill, as mindless of our innocence as we were mindful of the heady fragrance scenting the air and our bodies as we rubbed against the dill on those summer days when misty rain fell.

And so, it was. My impromptu dinner–built around little more than a hankering that begged for fulfillment–took me back to that self-same patch of dill. It took me back with such vibrant and vivid certainty that if I had a patch of dill right here on my mountain and if the warm summer rain fell upon it now as it fell upon it then, I vow that I would–in this, my 75th summer–strip down to my skivvies and run barefoot through the enchanted patch, confident that my rubbings against the dill would burst wide open those magical days of childhood innocence, as fragrant as ever again.

Human Being, Not Human Doing

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Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961; Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst; father of analytical psychology.)

The rain was steady and heavy all night. I say “all night,” but I’m not really certain when it started. It’s not as if it awakened me, and I looked at the clock and whispered to my sleeping self, “Ah, it’s raining.” But I could hear it, even as it lulled me into a deeper and more restful slumber.

When I awakened, the raindrops were pearling their way down the window panes. As I lay in bed–looking and listening–I knew that Plan B would govern my day.

Plan A had been to continue my yard work. This year, my focus is more on “taking out” than on “putting in.” I have lots and lots of shrubs–especially rhododendrons–that have outgrown the spaces where I planted them. For some, a heavy pruning will restore their vitality and their appearance. For others, pruning will neither restore their vitality nor their beauty. They have to be removed. So that’s what I’ve been doing. Pruning. Removing. Hauling truckload after truckload to the landfill. That was my Plan A.

But I had checked the weather forecast before going to bed and knew the strong likelihood of rain.

That was when I came up with Plan B. I could spend the day doing some extra indoor biking. Then, I could start rearranging the artwork in my office–a task that I have needed to tackle for months, but one that I have managed to avoid doing with full success. And betwixt and between, I could make Ukrainian Sauerkraut Soup–perfect for a chilly, rainy-day dinner–and I could bake Jumbo Sourdough Banana Nut Muffins–a perfect way to use up this week’s sourdough discard. 

It was settled. Plan B, it would be.

But before I started to execute that plan, I perused my smartphone news. As I did, I was ever aware of the rain, still falling hypnotically. For a second, I considered stopping the pendulum on my grandfather clock so that the only sound would be the rhythm of the falling rain. Then, in the next second, I looked out the window onto my deck. I could see the raindrops dropping one by one off the scalloped edges of my Asian patio umbrella–all wet with green bamboo, red sun, pink blossoms, and blue happiness. And for another second, I considered trying to count the drops as they fell, starting at the 6:30 position on the umbrella, proceeding clockwise, counting every sliding raindrop, working my way back home, and then beginning anew.

As I considered those thoughts, I glanced down at the next news flash to discover an article from Open Culture: “Stephen King Recommends 96 Books that Aspiring Writers Should Read.” I knew immediately that it was not newsy at all. I had read that same article nearly a decade ago. I perused the list anyway, discovering that I could not claim to have read any more of those books now than I could claim to have read them then. As I reached the end of the article, I found that King had updated his list: “Stephen King Creates a List of 82 Books for Aspiring Writers (to Supplement an Earlier List of 96 Books.)” I scanned that list quickly.

Somehow, I was brought back to the reality of my grandfather clock still ticking. I had not stopped the clock as I had considered doing. I was brought back to the reality of the raindrops still falling off the scalloped edges of my Asian patio umbrella. I had not counted the raindrops as I had considered doing.

I was brought back to the haunting reality that my day was wasting away.

I still needed to meditate so that I could get started with my Plan B. Meditation does not come easy for me, even after years of daily practice. I’m finding, though, that I can sit with myself for longer and longer periods of time without my mind being pulled in the direction of all the other things that I could be doing.

But on this day, when the “all” of the day seemed to be wrapped up in the “all” of the rain, I decided to sit for a shorter-than-usual spell. Ten minutes. No more. I had things to do on my Plan B.

I was drawn to an 11-minute mindfulness session. Surely, I could spare an extra minute, especially since the title tugged at me: “Human Being, Not Human Doing.”

“If you’re like most people, you probably feel like you have to be constantly doing something.”

I was stunned. How on earth did acclaimed meditation coach Lynne Goldberg know so perfectly how I was feeling? How I feel so often?

In her meditation session, she explores the roots of our obsession with doing, tracing the origins all the way back to our childhoods when others praised us for doing things that we were good at doing. Art. Dance. Music. Sports. Wordplay.  She continues her exploration–even into relationships–noting that the praise we receive for the things that we do begins to validate us and our self-worth.

And then she drives home her point. Validation through doing is external, controlled by others. It leaves us with the feeling that we have to continue to do–to perform–in order to get those accolades. To feel loved. To maintain that sense of self-worth. Interestingly enough, we’re not even aware that it’s happening.

“At your essence, you are a human being, not a human doing. You are loved and worthy and enough exactly as you are. The only approval that you need is that of your own.”

“Well, of course,” I say to myself. The notion of loving yourself–of approving yourself–goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks even if it did not enter mainstream psyche and pop culture until the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the Hippies of the 1960s.

More, I’m not quite certain that I agree with Goldberg’s tack of tracing our emphasis on doing to the praise that we received from doing things well as long ago as our infancy. It seems to me that we need to consider other possibilities. The joy and love of work. The joy and love of doing. The joy and love of creating. The internal, self-validation that doing things well brings us even when others are totally unaware that we’re doing them.

But I’m not going to quibble over any of those possible disagreements right now.

For now, I’m just glad that I stumbled upon Goldberg’s meditation.

For now, I think that I will revisit King’s recommended reading lists and start to read–or reread–one of the books that I find there.

For now, I think that I will count the raindrops as they fall off the scalloped edges of my Asian patio umbrella.

For now, I think that I will stop the pendulum on my grandfather clock.

For now, I think that I will continue lounging in my azure blue linen bathrobe as noon approaches and as rain continues.

For now, I think that scrambled eggs on toast might be perfect for dinner.

For now, I think that I’m really enjoying doing nothing more than just being.

More Mishaps & Memories

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“I’ve learned so much from my mistakes … I’m thinking of making some more.”

Cheryl Cole (b. 1983; English singer and television personality.)

Well, I don’t know about you, but this past week has been quite a week for me. I daresay that it would have been for you, too, if you had disclosed as much about yourself–for the whole world to see–as I did last week in my “M & M’s: Mishaps and Memories.”

I mean, it wasn’t too bad that I fessed up to not remembering the mishap that prompted the post in the first place, and it wasn’t too bad that I shared two foot-in-mouth mishaps. But what on earth possessed me–at the end of the post–to mention my IQ test.

Without a doubt, I did not need to bring up my IQ. Even now, after considerable reflection, I don’t know why I did. It’s not as if I don’t have an IQ. I do. But–brace yourself–I had to take my IQ test twice to find out my score.

Right now, the foot in my mouth is getting harder and harder to swallow, so I had just as well tell you all about my IQ test mishap so that I can gulp–and you can gasp–and we can all be done with it.

I was in the third grade. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention to the test directions. I don’t remember. I just thought that it was one more fun thing to do on one more fun-filled school day. And everything was going along just fine until I got to the third test question. It was a math question, and it must have been a real challenge. I kept working away on it, and just when I figured out the answer, the exam time was up.

I flunked my IQ test.

“What do you mean? Of course, Brentford Lee has an IQ.”

“But it can’t be determined because he only answered three questions. He didn’t finish the test.”

“Well, give it to him again and make sure he knows that he has to answer all the questions.”

The whole mishap was more embarrassing for my parents than it was for me. It didn’t bother me too much because, in my mind, I blamed them. After all, they were the ones who had taught me:

If a job is once begun

Never leave until it’s done.

Be it’s labor great or small,

Do it well or not at all.

Naturally, when I was challenged by that math question, it became my job. I kept working on it all the way to the end of the exam time. In my mind, that question became my great labor. I was fiercely determined to figure it out. Until I did–and I did, eventually–I couldn’t begin to think about all those other questions. In my mind, they didn’t even exist.

Well, like I said, I had to take the test again to establish for someone’s benefit that I had an IQ. I guess I showed them a thing or two because I didn’t have to take it a third time.

But don’t ask me to tell you my IQ score. I can no more remember it than I can remember my Myers-Briggs personality type. I always have to have Jenni remind me. (Dear Readers, you do remember Jenni, right? She’s my dear colleague, who set me up for this mishaps-and-memories nonsense in the first place.) Anyway, I’m 75% certain that I’m an ENFJ. It’s the 25% J part that always causes me to ask Jenny. Unlike me, she remembers everything.

Here. I’ll prove it. I just sent her a text message:

What is my Myers Briggs type?

If I recall correctly, aren’t you ENFP?

P?

I know the E and P for sure. The other two I think are right…

See. I told you. Jenni remembered. I am ENFP, and I’m sticking with it for now.

Wow! I’m glad that I told you all about my IQ mishap.

Now I can move on.

I mentioned last week that the mishap that sparked last week’s post might have had something to do with cooking or baking.

Now, however, I don’t think that it had anything to do with baking. I have shared my one memorable baking mishap already in my “Baking Up My Past.” Remember? In my first childhood baking adventure, I measured the baking powder incorrectly. Neither I nor my mother knew until batter oozed out the door of our South Bend, woodburning-cookstove, onto the kitchen floor.

Obviously, I have had other baking mishaps down through the years. But I have my reputation to protect–in my own mind, at least, even if nowhere else–so I’ll keep those to myself.

As for cooking mishaps, I do have one that always makes me laugh. It proves, once again, how naive and innocent and unschooled I am in the ways of the world.

I’m not certain, however, that it can be considered cooking. Is popping popcorn cooking? And it involves a microwave. I’m fairly certain that preparing anything in a microwave can not be considered cooking.

Nonetheless, here’s the laughable mishap that might have been related to cooking, depending on your culinary views.

For years, I would have nothing to do with microwaves. But the time came when my oldest sister Audrey talked me into letting her gift me with a microwave. As near as I can remember, it would have been around 1994 when my now full-time home in the Shenandoah Valley was then just a weekend getaway. She thought that I could use the microwave, if for nothing else, for popping popcorn. I mean, who doesn’t like popcorn? So I accepted her gift, not realizing how big the microwave was nor how much it weighed. It was, after all, 1994, and by then microwaves had advanced a lot, and they were much smaller than the commercial refrigerator-sized RadarRanges that Raytheon brought out in the 1940s. I assumed that my gift would be modern and small, too.

Small? Not. It was huge. It took up nearly all of the island counter space in what was then my super-small, weekend kitchen.

But, hey. I’m always up for a popping good time. So I bought a box of Jolly Time popcorn packets.

I put a pack in my clunker microwave and stood there in full anticipation.

Nothing. No popping sounds. No popcorn aromas.

Nothing.

I tried again. Nothing. As my IQ test mishap demonstrates, I don’t give up. I went through the entire damn box and my entire damn evening. Nothing.

The next day, I took the box and all of the unpopped packets back to the store.

“I want to get my Jolly Time money back. This popcorn must be old. None of it would pop.”

I walked away with a refund.

A few weeks later, my sister called to see how I was enjoying the microwave.

I told her about my disappointing popcorn experience.

“What cooking mode did you have it on?”

“Say whaat? Cooking mode?”

She explained the controls and the various options.

“Run into the kitchen and check. I’ll stay on the line.”

I was back in a sec.

“It’s on … Defrost.”

Dang. Defrost. Needless to say, I felt like an idiot. For some reason, I never did like that microwave after that memorable mishap.

At last, I remember the mishap that started all of these confessions. It was decidedly a technological mishap, even more embarrassing than the microwave one.

This mishap happened in the late 1980s or early 1990s when Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone introduced Caller ID to its subscribers in Washington, DC. I had just launched my own side gig–Potomac Research Organization (PRO)–and I felt a compelling need to monitor my incoming calls.

Instanter I went downtown and bought myself new phones so that I would know who was calling me.

As soon as I installed them, I called my sister in Richmond:

“Hey. I just bought these new Caller ID phones. Call me so I can see who’s calling.”

She did. Her name and number did not show up on my phone.

I did the same thing with my oldest sister in West Virginia.

She called me. Again, her name and number did not show up on my phone.

I unplugged my phones, boxed them up, and on Monday, I marched in the store, asking that my defective phones be replaced.

What do you mean by defective?

I explained in detail my two “test” experiments with my two sisters.

The salesperson looked at me with a smirky smile that still makes me cringe:

“Have you enrolled in Caller ID with Chesapeake and Potomac?”

“Say whaaaaat? Do you mean to tell me that I have to buy new phones AND enroll in Caller ID? Well, I have never.”

I got my money back, and I was perfectly happy living my life exactly as I had been living it: answering my phone without knowing who was calling. Or not answering it at all.

Yes, indeed! Caller ID was the mishap that sparked the idea for last week’s post and for this one, too.

I wish that I could say that I have learned a lot from my mishaps. I haven’t. And I wish that I could say that I won’t have any more mishaps. But I will. And I will keep right on laughing through all the memories.

M & M’s: Mishaps & Memories

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“To make mistakes is human; to stumble is commonplace; to be able to laugh at yourself is maturity.”

William Arthur Ward (1921-1994; American motivational writer.)

Memory of an elephant. Yep. That’s exactly what I’ve got, and you–My Dear Readers–can vouch for me. As you know, I can drone on and on about many things, especially about my elephant memory. I did so just week before last in “Dating after Twenty-Three.” Remember? Of course, you do.

But here’s the thing. For this week’s post, I’m in a bit of a pickle. I’m having a memory lapse.

Don’t worry. I’m sure that it’s minor, and I’m sure that it’s momentary. But for the life of me, I can’t remember what the hell this post is supposed to be about. I don’t mean in the broadest sense of its content. Of course, I know that fully well: mishaps and memories.

The idea sparked as miraculously as spontaneous combustion one day last fall when a dear colleague and I were exchanging lighthearted banter, and I ended up fessing up to one of the many mishaps that I’ve suffered down through the years that ended up as memories.

As soon as I shared it with her, she quipped:

“That would be an excellent angle for one of your blog posts.”

I agreed. Almost immediately, I started a draft and made it as far as the preliminary title: “Mishaps and Memories.” In an instant, the two M’s seemed sweet enough to melt in my mouth, so the working title became the final title of today’s delectable treat: “M & M’s: Mishaps & Memories.”

Immediately, I loved the quadruple alliteration as well as the double ampersand. I still love them. Plus, in high school, I learned that every good title has a main title and a subtitle, separated with a colon. Can you believe that I remembered that little rule after all these years and used it here with a full measure of success?

But I sure wish that I could remember the memorable mishap that sparked this idea the day that my colleague and I were having such frivolous merriment on paid college time. (Oops! Did I just say that? Well, so be it. It’s not a problem for me anyway because I’m no longer on the college’s payroll. I’m reinventing myself at my own expense. It’s no problem for my colleague either because I have not disclosed her identity.)

Let’s see. What can I do to jog my memory? I know. I’ll use my alphabet technique for remembering things. Starting with the letter A, I’ll slowly work my way through the alphabet, lingering on each letter for a bit. When I get to the letter of whatever it is that I’m trying to remember, the entire word will flash apocalyptically across my mind.

Well, I’ve been from A to Z and back. Not once. Not twice. But three times. No apocalypse.

Well, duh. Why don’t I just text Jenny? I’m sure that she would remember our conversation. On the other hand, doing that would give me a ready answer and spoil all my fun and yours, too.

If I keep at it, I’m sure that I’ll remember. Aside from my foolproof alphabet technique, I have another technique for remembering things. But right now, I can’t remember it either.

So where was I? Oh, yes. I remember. I was trying to remember my memorable mishaps.

Well, let me just start sharing some, and as I share, maybe–just maybe–I’ll remember the one that Jenny thought was so riveting.

The mishap that I am about to share was the result of my naivete and innocence coupled with my polite and courteous outspokenness, for which I am so well known.

When I started my Federal career, I was part of a large editorial team. One of my co-workers was Ed-–h B-l-–r. After a year or so, I transferred to another editorial position in the same Federal agency, but in a different building.

On my first day in my new position, I was introduced to one of my fellow editors, H-l-n B-l—r.

Since their last names were the same, I assumed that they were related, and I was so delighted with myself that I had a perfect way to get into a perfect conversation with her.

“It’s an honor to meet you. Are you related to Ed–h B-l—r?”

“Do you mean the bitch who stole my husband?”

What an embarrassing mishap. Now, though, it’s a funny memory.

Okay. Let’s try another mishap confirming that I am naive, innocent, and downright dumb when it comes to being politely and courteously outspoken.

Fast-forward, if you will, a good number of years. Same Federal agency. Different position. Different building.

In that position, I had to review everything that the staff ghostwrote for my boss, the director.

One memo caused me to have some major concerns, and I called them to B-n’s attention.

“Go down there right now and tell N-r- that this is nothing but a piece of sh-t.”

I did as directed.

“Good morning, N-r-.” I flashed my widest smile as I handed her the document. “B-n told me to tell you that this memo is nothing but a piece of sh-t.”

N-r- stormed out, taking the stairs to B-n’s office on the sixth floor. I took the elevator, hoping to warn B-n. Fury must have wings. She beat me to his office where I found her giving him a piece of … her mind.

Sadly, these two foot-in-mouth mishaps haven’t taken me any closer to the mishap that I’m struggling to remember.

Maybe it had something to do with technology?

Maybe it had something to do with cooking or baking?

Maybe it had something to do with both?

Surely, it didn’t have anything to do with my IQ test. I don’t think that I have ever disclosed that mishap to one single solitary living soul. No, not one.

And, please, please, please, Dear Colleague who was with me when the idea combusted originally: do NOT reveal your identity by commenting on this post to tell me the memorable mishap that I can’t remember. You must remember that I have done everything in my power to keep it concealed.

Also, doing so would make me look really dumb. Work with me. Give me a little more time. By next week’s post, I’ll surely remember the memorable mishap that I can’t remember right now.